First Listen

First Listen is another great site brought to you by NPR where you can listen to select previews of artists upcoming albums in their entirety. How cool is that? Cool enough that I had to share it with all of you!

When you get to the site, you’ll see the featured album previews on the main page, and a link at the bottom that takes you to the Full Archive. The navigation strip at the top takes you back to the NPR’s music home, so that’s not what you’re looking for unless you want to explore the rest of what NPR has to offer musically.

The important thing to note: Full Listens are only available for a limited time. So how do you know if you can listen? Well there will be a Play button with the word Listen beneath it. If the audio has expired, where that play button was will be a Read button. So even after the audio is gone you can still read the article on the artist.

This is a very cool way to discover new music, and learn about artists. Or to check out your favorite artist’s latest offering.